Why Church Decline Matters with Ben Crosby | Episode 224

Ben Crosby, an Episcopal priest returns to talk about the decline of mainline Protestantism. We discuss his recent article highlighting a 40% drop in attendance in the Anglican Church in Canada, which he argues reflects a broader crisis in engaging new believers and younger generations. Ben challenges the notion that declining numbers are a necessary adjustment in a pluralistic society, asserting that true church vitality encompasses discipleship alongside social justice. We explore the emotional toll on church leaders amid these declines and conclude with a hopeful vision for revitalization, emphasizing the need for mainline churches to balance faith and social action to remain relevant in today's landscape.

[0:00] When it comes to mainline Protestantism in the 21st century, do numbers matter? My guest today would say, yes, that's coming up. We'll be right back.
[0:11] Music.
[0:37] Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. I'm speaking today with return guest Ben Crosby, and we will be talking about why the decline of mainline Protestantism matters. Now, I had Ben on the podcast nearly two years ago, really to chat about this same topic. And I had to have him on because he was basically a breath of fresh air.
[1:08] We kind of live in a time when a lot of leaders in mainline denominations are very much in denial about decline and what to do about it. And Ben was out there really kind of talking about this and actually talking a while about how much it bugged him that people didn't want to talk about this. And he was also able to offer some possible solutions. So today we're going to be looking at decline again, and it's based on an article he wrote in late 2024 on his sub stack that's titled On the Current State of the Anglican Church in Canada. And in the article, he looks at several reasons for and against thinking that the Anglican Church in Canada is facing decline. And then he offers his own take, which, as usual, is always interesting and inspiring. Ben is a priest in the Episcopal Church, but he is currently serving in the Anglican Church of Canada. And he is a PhD student in ecclesiastical history at McGill University in the School of Religious Studies in Montreal. So, I hope that you'll enjoy this discussion with Ben Crosby.
[2:24] Music.
[2:42] Well, Ben, it is great to have you back on the podcast. Well, great to have you here a few years ago to talk about church decline and why that matters. And we're kind of talking about that again today. But before we kind of go into that talk, for people who didn't hear that initial interview, and I will actually put it in the show notes, just to introduce yourself a little about who you are. And also about your faith background.
[3:15] Yeah, thank you so much, Dennis. I really enjoyed our conversation last time. I'm thrilled to be back. So yes, my name is Ben Crosby and I am a priest of the Episcopal Church in the United States, although currently serving in the Anglican Church of Canada. I've moved up there a couple of years ago to do a PhD in church history where I work on the English Reformation, which we can also talk about if you want, but might be a bit far afield of what we're mostly here to talk about. In terms of my own background, I grew up in the church, grew up in the Lutheran Church, in fact, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, in college, quite involved in both the ELCA Lutheran campus ministry, as well as the Episcopal Church, sort of started discerning a call to ministry, ended up feeling like God was calling me to the Episcopal Church, and so here I am. We have been ordained for a couple of years now, served always, you know, at this point, you know, since I've been pursuing PhD studies, you know, I've been serving in a part-time or volunteer capacity, but I've gotten to help out at a variety of churches in the Montreal area while I've been studying there.
[4:38] All right. So I wanted to talk about something that you wrote late last year about, the title is The Current State of the Anglican Church in Canada. And you actually referenced something from a blog from The Living Church, which I believe is an Anglican magazine, an online magazine. And you talked about, you were basically kind of commenting on a post that talked about the Anglican Church in Canada being kind of the first in the Anglican Communion, the worldwide Anglican Communion, that has collapsed. Now, it's still there. It still actually has churches. It has bishops. It does things. But what does it mean for, and this was from David Guthu, to say that the church has collapsed?
[5:34] Yeah, great question. So what David Goodhue articled excuse me, Yeah, great question. What David Goodhue argued in this piece is that when we look at claps or when we talk about claps, you know, what we often look at first is things like Sunday attendance. And indeed, the numbers for the Anglican Church of Canada are very bad and getting worse. Between 2001 and 2022, we've seen a 40% attendance drop, for example. But, in fact, he argues that we can see even more profoundly a collapse in looking at changes in baptism and the age profile of the congregation. He argues that in some ways, the sort of attendance numbers are a little bit of a lagging indicator that if in fact, your church only has elderly people in it, and your church is sort of failing to welcome new people into the faith, which is what baptism means, either as children or adults.
[6:51] That then your church is collapsed. Your church not just will collapse, but has collapsed. That because an important part of what Christians do, a central part of the church is making disciples. If a church, particularly a church like the England Church of Canada that baptizes infants, is not baptizing anyone really, infants or adults, then we have collapsed. And indeed, it is really kind of amazing. You know, if you look at the numbers in 2022, for instance.
[7:25] The Anglican Church of Canada baptized well under 4 people across the entire church in a year, which is, you know, I mean, if you go back to our high point in the 1960s, we were well over 10 times that number. Earth and you even say in this that apart from a few pockets of vitality that you would say the church is dead um which again there are things happening but it's almost as if kind of to put it in my turn to zombie yeah yes i mean i think i think i think that's um yeah i think that's that's good Hughes language. It's very strong, but I think it's about right that, yes, we still have our diocesan infrastructure. We still have our parish annual meetings. We still have public worship, but in terms of a church making new believers and leading them into a life of discipleship.
[8:32] Yeah, we have died. In fact, one of the things that I looked at in my piece is not just baptism numbers, but also confirmation numbers. So for Anglicans, of course, as for many traditions that practice infant baptism, you're typically baptized as an infant, but then you have a chance on the cusp of adulthood or adolescence, sometime in the teen years usually, to reaffirm the commitment made on your behalf at baptism and say, yes, I want to do this Christian thing. And here, you know, our numbers even pre-pandemic were, I think in 2019, we had less than 5% as many people confirmed as our church did back in 1959. And in some of the more recent years, the post-pandemic years that we have measures for, like 2022, for example, we have fewer than 2 people seeking confirmation, which is to say making an adult profession of faith in our church.
[9:47] Well a congregation sigh a large-ish congregation of people but this is you know you could fit 2 000 people in one of our churches pretty easily um and this is you know all of the people across all of canada within the anglican church that are saying you know yes i want to commit to uh to being a christian in the anglican way in the anglican church i think death is about right, Now, and this seems to be a common thing, whenever there is talk about loss of members or loss of kind of decline, there is always a counter-argument. And that was kind of the focus of our last time together. And that's also the focus here in that there was someone that responded to...
[10:40] The original blog post, and her name is Emily Smith. And her thing was that, and this is something that I hear all the time, it's usually said in different ways, that yeah, there is decline, but this is actually the church kind of repositioning itself. That's what she says in a pluralistic and multicultural world. She thinks that we're just moving away from more colonial or kind of, I know these are not her words, but kind of more maybe considered racist path towards a better future.
[11:23] And that, you know, this will allow us to focus on things like contemporary social and political issues. What is the kind of what do you think is the the thing that is where that argument falls short or falls apart in your view yeah it's a great question i mean i think it is it is worth saying, first of all that i think that there there are you know i don't think that argument is is totally off base in every respect, right? I mean, I think it's certainly true that if we say, oh, you know, well, look how many people, as I just said, look how many people were confirmed back in the late 50s or early 60s, you can say, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong, well, in a Christian culture, this is a coming-of-age ritual. A lot of people are doing it who aren't necessarily really doing this to say, I want to be a Christian. They're doing it because it's just what you do when you turn 14 and, you know, wherever you are. Yes, that is true. On the other hand, I think that both are.
[12:41] Yes, that is true. On the other hand, I think there are probably at least two things I would want to say. First of all, I think that if we really take Scripture seriously, if we take Jesus' commands to go out and make disciples, if we take the deep concern that we see throughout the book of Acts, say, for the growing of the church and more and more people coming to new life in Christ, I think we just have to say that decline is a problem, a crisis, a disaster, even if we want to say, yeah, it's hard for me to imagine saying that it is a good thing. As you'll sometimes hear people say, that fewer people have the opportunity to hear the word preached, to receive the sacraments, to hear the good news of what Jesus did for them, of who Jesus is. You know, I just don't think we can get away from that. But even if you do want to say that.
[13:53] The primary role of the church right now is to sort of be a witness and activist for certain sort of social justice ends, which to be clear, I certainly think is part of the church's vocation. I just don't know that I would sort of say it is the whole of it in the way that it sometimes seems to be in some mainline discourse. But even if what you're really interested in is the social justice work of the church. The church can't do that effectively if it doesn't have people. I think I talked about this last time. I used to be a union organizer and we were very...
[14:36] Realistic about the fact that the strength of the labor movement in the United States depends on there being more workers in unions. And that is part of why we were so committed to trying to organize more workers, both for their own sakes, to make these sort of workplaces better for the people working there, but also to sort of build a broader and more powerful movement across the country for pursuing economic justice. And so, you know, I hesitate to sound like I'm making a purely consequentialist argument here because I do think that new people coming to Christ and being in our churches is good for its own sake. But even if you want to talk about the social impact of the church, you need more people in church to do that. No one cares what the primate, the Archbishop of Canada says, or the leader of the Episcopal Church in the States for that matter. And so they can say a lot of very good and righteous things, and I tend to agree with them more often than not, but it doesn't really mean anything if you represent a tiny, failing, collapsing institution.
[15:57] Why do you think that people make that argument that the numbers don't matter? And this is kind of where, and we had talked about this beforehand, of the recent analysis that Ryan Berge, the sociologist, brought. And this was actually an argument that kind of happened on Facebook within my denomination, because within the Disciples of Christ, if you think that collapse is bad among the Anglicans in Canada, we—hold my beer. It's worse among the Disciples, because we've lost about 74% since the 80s. And the response from some people was kind of, well, that doesn't matter because, you know, the numbers don't matter. What matters is, is being faithful. And it's always kind of almost with a shrug. Um, and it's not that, you know, we need to panic though it's tempting to panic with those numbers. Um, but I, I don't always understand why the, the response from people is usually a shrug when it seems you're a part of this, this, you know, tradition. Does this matter to you?
[17:27] Yeah, it's a really good question. And frankly, it's one I would love to hear your thoughts about as well, because it's also something that I sort of sometimes feel like I'm banging my head against a wall about of, you know, how can you not be so concerned about this? I mean, I think...
[17:47] I think that for ministers, especially, although certainly we're not unique in this, I think that so much of our self-regard and sense of ourselves tends to be wrapped up in our work in a way that makes admitting that maybe we've been trying for very hard but not successful. Feel like it is not just, you know, a problem that we need to figure out how to solve together, but like an indictment on a deep moral level of us as individuals. And I'm sure, right? I mean, I'm still a relatively young minister, both in years ordained and just in age, but I can imagine.
[18:40] It being intensely frustrating and dispiriting to have, you know, spent decades in ministry trying first one, then another attempt to turn things around and grow your congregation and not see them bear a lot of fruit. And I think it's entirely understandable as a sort of way to cope with that, to say, well, maybe this isn't such a big deal. Maybe it doesn't matter. You know, I also think that.
[19:13] You know, particularly in churches where questions about women's and especially LGBTQ inclusion are sort of relatively—are still live issues to some extent, at least, or at the very least sort of battles for inclusion are still within living memory. I think that arguing that the church has gone awry in some ways or that our numerical decline means that we're doing something wrong can very easily feel like an attack on those things, which I think makes people very defensive. Um yeah that's that's i feel like the that's the best that that i've got i'm i'm curious if you have any any other thoughts and i know it's sort of dangerous to try to um you know psychoanalyze people at uh at a distance or what have you but uh but that's that's sort of my sense i think i think there are a few things going on personally um i think one is is especially i think within mainline churches, I think sometimes we have started to believe that.
[20:32] The church is there to help us to be good people. Yes. And if we end up with people who are good people who help the poor, do things to that extent, well, then it's worked. And so then we don't see church as that important because at least we're still producing all of these good people. Yep. And I also think, and I kind of borrow this from a colleague of mine, Loren Richmond Jr., that he tends to think we've kind of bought into the fact in some ways that the church isn't necessary. I think, and especially in our culture, we've become very individualistic. So it's funny that maybe among progressives, we make fun of kind of the Jesus and me among evangelicals, but I think that we have kind of that same thing. It's just different trappings. And so we think that church is just, it's not really that necessary. As long as I have all these good teachings, well, then that's okay. That's enough.
[21:52] Not knowing that, you know, we kind of, I think, we grow in our faith through God and through others, and that's really why the church is there. But I think we think it's like we can just read this book and we'll, you know, we'll be good Christians. And it's like, there've been a lot people that read the bible weren't did didn't always hit i'm african-american i know my history of how people back in the south read the bible yeah didn't change things when it came to slavery sometimes so you know i mean it's i think those are some of the things that are working.
[22:36] Or some of the mindsets that are happening no i think i think that's that's really really really well said. I think that's exactly right. I think that in a lot of our churches, we're not really sure whether or not we think being a Christian matters if you're, you know, otherwise a sort of good moral person. And as you say, we're not sure if the church has anything to do with you being either a Christian or a moral person. And if you sort of throw both of those out, then sure, you know, decline doesn't matter so much. I mean, I do also wonder sometimes, and I wonder what you make of this, if, you know, part of it too, especially since at the institutional level, we have sort of creaked on that it is difficult for us to imagine.
[23:30] The actual disappearance of our churches rather than just, well, you know, they're smaller than they used to be, but they're all,
[23:35] it'll still sort of always be there. You know, I was, um, was, uh, doing some, for some research, actually, I was in, uh, in North Africa, um, a couple of years ago and, you know, it was sort of a bracing reminder of, you know, the church was once vibrant there and it is really just ruins now like it is it's gone like that that can in fact happen you know pray god it won't happen here but uh but we're you know we are promised that the church will will remain until jesus returns we're not promised the church in any one place will, right?
[24:23] It's hard to bring in kind of current topics, but I was reading somewhere, someone who was talking about the fact that worked at the time for USAID, which is of course in the news right now, and it was a journalist, I believe, talked with this person, and he, They were in Afghanistan doing work and all that, and he remarked to this journalist, you only think you want to live in a world without Pax Americana. And so I kind of think about that when it comes to especially the mainline church is that you only think you want to live in a world without the mainline church. Um and i think that people don't think about that much and so they think that it will be there um and i'm like no it won't always be there um or it may not always be there but right i think that's kind of where people are how people think yeah no i i that's i think that's a that's a helpful comparison. And I, yeah, I think that's right.
[25:40] You know, one of the things that you bring up and you, I guess last year interviewed Everett Lees, who was an Episcopal priest that I have heard of. I have not met him or anything, but it sounds like also died way too young.
[25:59] But he had some things to say about the whole thing, it's not about the numbers, butts in pews type thing. Would you care to elaborate on that, share what you learned from that interview, and what's important to us in our contest?
[26:22] Absolutely. Yes, so Everett Lees was an Episcopal priest down in Oklahoma with a A really amazing story of revitalizing a church that was sort of essentially on the ready to close, basically. They had sort of had a serious—they had lost a lot of members there over questions of LGBTQ inclusion. There was sort of really only a rump congregation left that was kind of trying to figure out if they could hold on or not. And really, thanks to, by the Spirit's power, and with some really hard work from Everett and the leadership of that congregation.
[27:06] Became one of the fastest growing and really one of the sort of most vibrant and one of the larger Episcopal churches in the country. So I was able to do an interview with him for my, for my sub stack a little while ago, which if you wouldn't mind putting in the show notes, actually, that would be great because I'll, I'll talk a little bit about it, but really you should, you should go read him for, for himself. But on this question, what he says, you know, is really two things. You know, there is a deep concern in the New Testament in the book of Acts with numbers when it comes to conversions that just textually, you know, the author is always saying, you know, and after this sermon, this many people become Christians. After this sermon, you know, this many people sort of get baptized and follow Jesus. And so I think there's this clear sense, you know, from Scripture itself.
[28:02] That numbers do matter. And the reasons that numbers matter isn't just because we're about building up institutions for their own sakes or something like that, but because each number, means a life transformed by Jesus. I'm going to quote Everett here, actually. He says, I think we can say biblically that numbers actually do matter. It's not that they matter at the top line, so we can just sit there and say, well, we grew X number. But it's that each one of those numbers is somebody whose life has been changed and transformed through relationship with Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit. He says each of these stories of conversion is hard to capture in average Sunday attendance or metrics like that, but anyone's story is still wrapped up in those numbers, and so those numbers really do matter. He says, if it matters that someone follows jesus um which which he thinks that it does and i i agree then then these numbers do matter because they mean lives transformed by the spirit people following jesus.
[29:11] That also leads to a kind of made me think about something else is that do you think that part of the problem also is that.
[29:21] We don't think that jesus does transform lives or that that matters um that kind of all the you know there's sometimes the talk about that people say that you know we might um, talk about the creeds and all that but it's with our fingers crossed that we don't always believe all that stuff um does that have a role in some of this I think that absolutely has a role. I mean, it's one of the things that, you know, to build on something you said earlier, where we're not sure if we think that being a Christian is mostly about being a moral person, well, maybe you don't really need Jesus to do that so much. And so I think that this is a huge problem in a lot of the mainline right now, that we are very nervous about saying something like, we think that Jesus is God and that Jesus wants to be. I guess you don't have to use the relationship language if that's too sort of evangelical coded, but that, you know.
[30:29] That human life should be oriented towards receiving his grace and responding to his grace by following him in a life of love and service. Yeah, I think this language scares a lot of us. And so I think that we tend to default to a kind of.
[30:52] Sloppy and not very well thought through sort of relativism that suggests that, yes, so long as, you know, your religion is producing good social outcomes, that's all that really matters. And if that's the case, yeah, I think that these things like numbers, these things like decline become a lot harder to take very seriously. You know, there's an argument made about the.
[31:22] Historians of American religion, someone by the name of David Hollinger in particular, who basically argues, which I think is quite interesting, that the mainline is essentially a victim of its own success, that sort of mainline religion came to be identified almost entirely with a set of ethical, moral, to some extent political commitments that the mainline churches actually did a very good job instilling those in their people. But if that indeed came to be seen as the real purpose of religion, then, well, maybe you don't really need the mainline to teach people to do that, if that's just sort of become the kind of broader cultural common sense. And so his argument, at least, which I think is interesting and plausible, is that, you know, this identification of sort of mainline Christianity with a certain moral and ethical stance and the, Widespread, although not complete by any means, sort of dominance of that ethical stance, at least amongst large swaths of American society, makes Christianity seem not that necessary. You know, if Jesus is just there to tell you to love other people and be a nice person and, you know, have center-left politics, you don't really need Jesus to tell you to do that.
[32:50] Yeah, I think there's another thing also that is interesting about all this. There are two things. And again, going back to Ryan Berge, he kind of looked through who voted for who in our last presidential election. And even within the mainline church, there were lots of people that voted for Donald Trump.
[33:14] Related to that are two other articles or things that I've read. One is by Methodist Pastor Jason Michele that really talks about the fact that we have to take that seriously, but that there is a problem, especially among clergy, that we tend not to like the people. In the peace, especially if they have voted differently from us. And then related to that was just a recent podcast by Andrew Root that links that, you know, one of the reasons I think he thinks that he and his guests talked about why the election turned out that way was because of a sense of, I guess, more from the left, and this would be found in mainline churches, kind of a sense of condescension that is kind of all of that kind of wrapped in together that.
[34:19] Might make it just seem, one, that the church is not necessary, but also that maybe you don't want to be around some of these people. Yeah, no, I think that's right and helpful and important. I mean, it is certainly true that in my own church, and I think that we might be a particularly extreme case, but are not the only church where this is the case. The sort of mismatch between the expressed politics of our clergy and our laity is quite intense, actually. And I think you're right. I don't know if it was ever explicitly—I don't think it was ever explicitly said, but there was this pretty clear sense when I was in seminary that the pastoral week we were called to is to sort of take our somewhat What benighted parishioners and helped them see the obvious social and political implications of their faith that they, you know, for some set of reasons are just sort of refusing to see.
[35:29] And needless to say, I don't think that's a particularly helpful model to embrace for ministry. I remember I had a friend who was actually attending, this was in Canada, was attending a sort of the seminary's kind of weekly ministerial prep seminar, the kind of opportunity for people to bring in speakers to talk about the sort of challenges in pastoral care, in church life. And then they brought in a speaker who was talking about—this isn't political condescension as much as theological condescension—how you really have to be ready to deal with the real fundamentalists in your congregation, that is, people who believe that Jesus was God and rose from the dead. And I heard this story and was like, I don't think this is fundamentalism. I think this is just Christianity. But—.
[36:25] Yeah, you know, it's a real attitude in some of our mainline churches that both I think that sort of serious faith is something to be a little suspicious of, and that pastors are mostly here to browbeat you into voting the right way and doing the right things. And I happen to think that that sort of browbeating isn't a particularly effective way of getting people to do anything anyway. And so I think you're right. I think it does end up driving people out who might otherwise be able to find a home in our congregations.
[37:11] So here's kind of a basic question is this. Why does the mainline church matter? Why do we need it? Because I think we do. And I think I keep referencing him, but Ryan Berge said this a while back, that there are reasons that we do. And a lot of it is of some of our background, our interest in social issues and helping the marginalized. And that if that's not there, there are not going to be places for, let's say, women in ministry to serve. There are not, for me personally, there are not going to be places for gay people to serve.
[38:01] That's kind of, for me, why I see that there is an importance of it. But I'd like to hear from you, why does the mainline church matter? Why do we need to try to find ways of preserving this tradition and keep it going in some ways and strengthening it? Yeah, I do think that it is a great question and an important one for us to
[38:26] articulate, so thank you. I'm thankful for the opportunity to think about this a little bit. I mean, the first answer that comes to mind is perhaps—to speak sort of personally—.
[38:39] There isn't another family of Christian churches where I could, with integrity, serve as a pastor, right? I mean, I think for me, it's sort of as simple as that, that my conscience binds me to at least if I'm going to be in any position of leadership to be in a church that proclaims the good news of the gospel, That holds, at least formally, if not so much always in practice, to the creeds and great confessions of the Christian faith, but that also welcomes women and LGBTQ people into the churches as in, you know, we'll celebrate same-gender marriages, we'll allow women or non-celibate gay and lesbian folks to be ministers, that sort of thing. Um, yeah, if this church goes, um, I don't know where, where I go. Um, it, it means that I'm probably not able to serve as a, uh, as a pastor anymore in, in good conscience.
[39:51] But not to be too solipsistic, I think that broadly, I do think that the mainline at its best offers a generous Christian orthodoxy that is committed to the faith once delivered to the saints, but also is deeply attuned to and committed to a sense of responsibility to the broader community in which it finds itself. That is sort of, you know, I think there's no coincidence that most of us, I suppose the disciples of Christ are an exception here.
[40:39] Are descended from kind of established or state churches of European Protestantism, which has a very complicated legacy for sure. But I think at its best means a really firm sense of the church as for all, that is sort of opposed to trying to draw the boundaries of belonging too tightly, that is sort of willing to instead sort of see its role as inviting people into, always be a mixed company here on earth, But all the same, sort of inviting people into deeper relationship with Christ from wherever they find themselves that is, yes, alert to the way in which Christian ethics requires us to—.
[41:35] To seek to transform the society in which we live in a direction that looks a little bit more like how Christ would have us live. I think these are all precious things. And, you know, I think bits and pieces of them are found in a variety of traditions outside of the main line, for sure. But I do think that they come together here in a way that is unique and valuable and that would be a profound loss to see disappear. When someone makes these arguments that, well, you know, numbers don't really matter, and we're doing a new way of church, how would you best, what is your advice
[42:23] for kind of best countering those arguments? Not necessarily, and mind you, not necessarily winning, but trying to present a view that might be persuasive.
[42:41] Yeah, I mean, I do think that pointing out that the social justice aims of this new way of church which requires people, can be a sort of powerful argument that sort of does create some common ground. I think inviting people to—I'll pause and come back. Other than that, you know, it does really become hard to have these conversations, I think, when there are just sort of genuinely different understandings of what Christianity is, of how much being a Christian matters, of who Jesus is. And so there are some times at which I think the sort of best that I think I can do, often the best we can do, is sort of make the stakes of this sort of disagreement about numbers clear, that, you know, that this isn't just about.
[44:02] Oh, I just want the church to be back how it was in the 60s so that I can have a, you know, position of sort of social cachet as a mainline minister or that. To try to sort of help people see, even if they're not going to agree, that my sense that our numerical collapse really is a crisis isn't just because I like doomsaying or am sort of nostalgic for the kind of less commendable parts of sort of the kind of quasi-establishment function that mainline churches used to play in the United States or Canada, But like, is it really because I think this is at the heart of my faith? I think at least if we can have a conversation about that, there's at least maybe some understanding, if not sort of persuasion or change of minds. And why do you think it is important to have the main only church, especially in our current context? And when I mean that, I mean within social political context. And to have one that is focused on discipleship and evangelism and worship. Yeah. I think that...
[45:29] Sorry, you're going to have to do a lot of editing, but give me just one sec.
[45:38] You know, I do not like being the sort of mainliner who is constantly complaining about evangelicalism for a variety of reasons. We have both in that we have our own problems and that I have personally benefited quite deeply and profoundly from evangelical Christianity in the United States and elsewhere. But especially when the sort of Christianity that is increasingly in the public view at the moment is a form of conservative evangelicalism that, on my reading at least, is really failing. To live up to or to sort of to express some parts of what at least I think are the social implications of Christian teaching. I mean, I think in particular, you know, seeing—I was genuinely a little shocked to see, you know, people who I know to be, you know, sort of professing and sincere Christians who were celebrating the refugee resettlement program being put on pause in the United States. And I mean, we can, you know, we can have a whole conversation about immigration, how it should be handled.
[46:59] But, you know, when I think of, of people who are both some of the most immiserated people in the world, and also people who, if they get to the point of actually settling in the United States, are so intensely and thoroughly vetted and checked over for any sort of risk to the public.
[47:21] And when I think of what Jesus says, what the prophets of the Old Testament say, what the history of the Christian tradition says about our duty to care for immigrants and refugees, or refugees in particular being a modern term, but immigrants and strangers, it's really depressing. And I know that there are many people, frankly, who are turned off from following Jesus because this is the sort of only image that they get in the public of how to be a Christian, of what it means like to follow Jesus. And so I do think that the mainline providing an alternative voice not—and I think there's a real risk here in, you know, I have to borrow a term from the last Trump presidency to dub ourselves the, you know, slightly Jesus-y wing of the resistance and be mostly about progressive politics in our public voice and, you know, not so much about the Jesus stuff. But I think there is a real opportunity to show a...
[48:32] A fulsome and different way of what practicing Christianity sort of looks like in public that is rooted, yes, not just in being a Democrat or whatever, but is actually rooted in Scripture, in the theological tradition of the Church, in an active life of worship and discipleship. I think it's really important.
[49:00] Yeah, I mean, I would agree in that. I'm someone, actually, that would say I benefit from American evangelicalism as well. I don't know where some of it is ending up.
[49:14] And I think it's important to have a strong voice. And I think that this is what's important, is that the danger right now, I think, with so much of how we look at the church is that it just, as you say, is the kind of chaplain to the resistance. And I think we have to be more than that. We must be more than that because not everyone has the same political view. That's right. And to speak in a way that is for the church, as a church, and in the way and kind of talking about the good news in a way that's very clear of who we are. And I think that that's important in this time. Yep.
[50:05] No, and I mean, yes, I think that's absolutely right. And I mean, we were talking earlier about the sort of political leanings of Episcopal clergy. I think it's also true that even on those sort of political situations where the church does feel like it needs to speak up as a voice you know with a voice it can do so a lot more credibly um when it is when it doesn't just seem to be you know the democratic party of prayer right or as it was slightly you know i i thought of uh you know the bishop uh the episcopal bishop who sort of called yeah bishop who called uh called donald trump to have have mercy which i i have to say i you know wouldn't have preached at all exactly like she did i i don't think that it was inappropriate to um um.
[50:54] For a minister to call the magistrate to the exercise of mercy, I mean, in, in, you know, carrying out his duties. But, but on the other hand, I do take seriously the sort of people that were like, well, you know, this is hard to take particularly seriously if I'm an Episcopalian, given that, um, all they ever say publicly about politics is, you know, we, we love the Democrats, right? I think, uh, a sermon, um, to say nothing of an Episcopal church that had been, that was a.
[51:24] Theologically rooted would maybe be taken more seriously in the moments where it does feel the need to say something. Yeah. Well, as we kind of come to a close, if people want to know more, read more about you, or follow you along, where should they go? Oh, thanks for that. The best way to follow me is probably my Substack blog, bencrosby.substack.com. I also do write with some frequency for a couple of Christian publications, especially Plow. So those are probably the places where you can most find my work. Okay. At some point, I still want to have you on to—because I wanted to talk to you at some point about the Canadian maid law. Yes. Um, and there have been changes in that since we talked last, but at some point I would like to talk to you about it. Cause I think it's a fascinating topic, um, fascinating and also disturbing, um, to talk about. So yeah, I really welcome, I would really welcome that conversation. Yeah. I'd be, I'd be thrilled to be back. I, yeah, let's make it happen. All right. Thank you so much, Ben. Thank you, Dennis. All right.
[52:46] Music.
[53:15] So I hope that you enjoyed the chat with Ben, and I will definitely put a link to the article, a link to his 2023 interview in the show notes. In the article, he actually, and in the interview today, he talked about Reverend Everett Lees. And Everett Lees was an Episcopal priest in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And he was there from 2011 until his untimely death in the summer of 2024 from pancreatic cancer. He had actually just found out maybe a few days before that he had had stage four cancer.
[54:02] But last year, I guess he also had an interview. Ben had an interview with Everett. And they talked about kind of that belief and hesitation about talking about numbers, or as Everett says here, butts in the pews. And he talks about why he thinks those numbers matter, but not in the way that you would expect. And I thought that there was a recording of this, and I just haven't been able to find it. But I thought that I would read the quote from Everett because I think it's an important one, especially for someone that I think was he himself was someone who helped turn around a church in the Episcopal Church, and that's saying something. And so I wanted to share this quote that is included in Ben's article. So here is the quote from Everett Lees.
[55:02] For one, we can look at this scripturally. In the New Testament, there are lots of times when the apostles are counting numbers, right? The gospel writers tell us that there are this many people who are receiving at the miracle of the loaves and fishes. In the book of Acts, every time the Spirit shows up, there's this many people who turn and give their life to Christ. So I think that we can say biblically that numbers actually do matter. It's not that numbers matter at the top line, so that we can just sit here and say, well, we grew X number, but that each one of those numbers is somebody whose life has been changed and transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit.
[55:48] Each individual story of conversion is hard to capture, but someone's story is still wrapped up in those numbers. So those numbers really do matter. After all, why does it matter that someone follows Jesus? I consider myself evangelical in that I think that a relationship with Jesus Christ is actually really important. I think having a strong pair of life is important. I think being formed by the scriptures is important. Being transformed by the sacraments is important. These things are so vital to the good of the world. Those things inform our social and public witness. I think we've created some false dichotomies, divisions between faith and witness or faith and action. And it seems like evangelism and church growth is always the one that loses.
[56:41] So that is the statement from that interview that Ben had with the late Reverend Everett Lees about the importance of church growth, but not in the way that sometimes we normally think about it and not in the way that sometimes we get nervous about. That it does matter because it's about people's lives and those lives matter. And I hope that that's something that, personally, that we can see in mainline denominations, especially in mine, the Christian Church Disciple of Christ, which I think has suffered a steep loss. And I think it's because we're not clear and we're feeling like we have to choose between either our kind of social witness or church growth and or evangelism. And I don't think that that's an either or. It's a both and.
[57:41] So, what are your thoughts about all of this? I'd like to hear what you're thinking. Feel free to send an email at churchinmain at substack.com. And as I said, I'm going to include the links to this article and also to the interview I had with Ben in 2023. Well, that is it for this episode of Church in Maine. Thank you so much for listening, as I always like to say. I hope that you will consider leaving a review. You can do that on your favorite or rating. You can do that on your favorite podcast app. I hope that you would consider sharing this with someone that you know. And also would hope that you would consider donating. You can do that by going to churchandmain.org, where you can also listen to past episodes. And I also have a substack that is churchandmain.substack.com. And that's where I usually have articles that I've written. I'm actually working on one that hopefully will show up in the next day or two. So I hope that you'll check that out as well. Again, that is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you so much for listening. Take care. Godspeed. and I will see you very soon.
[59:07] Music.

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